On January 9, 2002 10:57 pm, Linas Vepstas wrote: > Hmm, maybe we should start a CDDB-like service for fund ID's. > > I could run a little database on www.gnucash.org that contained a > smattering of fund names and ID numbers. It shouldn't be hard to write > the extension to gnucash to query the server for an ID, given the fund > name. Say something like the following screenshot: > > You asked for 'AGF Canadian Aggressive'. > Did you mean 'AGF Canadian Aggressive All-Cap Fund', > fund number 1726 on www.agf.com, > recent price is $CAD 42.42? > ()yes () no
For extra points, make the extension download the Finance::Quote module for the price source. But are there any legal issues? If I store this information on my computer, no one gives a hoot in practice. If you store it publically on www.gnucash.org, you become a target for legal attack. There have been lawsuits over things like catalog numbers in stamp catalogs. A financial web site might consider their internal codes to be proprietary, and extracting price information might violate terms of use. I also dislike the idea of putting arbitrary strings in the user interface. Can we hide security codes, and make them a private matter between GnuCash and Finance::Quote? Each Finance::Quote module already "knows" a bit about security codes for its quote source. We would have to extend the modules so that they know how to find the security code for a security or mutual fund. The program flow would be something like - the user selects quote source 'Wahoo' for the security named 'AGF Canadian Aggressive'. - GnuCash asks Finance::Quote::Wahoo for a list of securities and security codes, passing 'AGF Canadian Aggressive' as a hint. - Finance::Quote::Wahoo does its site-specific thing to build the list. (Finance::Quote::Tdwaterhouse would download the comma-separate-values file of all funds that it already uses. Finance::Quote::Yahoo would feed a search term to http://finance.yahoo.com/l.) - GnuCash would show the user the list. The user would pick one. - GnuCash would squirrel the security code away. Finance::Quote modules should also have some way to pass a 'help' message back to the user, to give hints about constructing security names. ("Go to http://finance.yahoo.com/l, and try different search terms.") _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gnumatic.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel